Examples of Intelligent Design and Unintelligent Design

Coffrey: I hear all time about "intelligent design", the trees and stars and how every system works with every other system. Well here's my list of stupid design that shows there isn't an intelligent creator.

1. The recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe, which instead of simply traveling across the neck descends 10 to 15 feet, loops around the heart, then heads back up the neck again.
2. Male nipples
3. Birds don’t have teeth. But they have genes for teeth, the constituent nucleotides of which require energy to synthesize and reproduce.
4. Impacted wisdom teeth.
5. Animals who live in complete darkness who have eyes that don't function.
6. Image processing on mammals is all the way at back of the head, traveling a long distance when it shouldn't have to.
7. Human ears have muscles that, in other animals help with rotating their ears towards sound, but considering our ears are flat, they serve no function, useless muscles.
8. Probably my favorite one, the fact that breathing and swallowing are done with the same tube, which leads to thousands of deaths a year.
9.Snakes have tiny bits of pelvis bone, hindleg bone and hindleg claws, despite obviously not having legs.
10. Whales have the same exact thing as #9, despite again, having no legs.
11. Male animals produce millions of sperm that most will never reach their intended target because, well let's say the treacherous environment that they travel through to reach the egg. Also, because we produce millions of sperm, that causes immense heat in the sperm processing organ, causing it have to be outside the body and be at the mercy of misplaced - or directed - kicks
12. Salamanders have regenerating tails. If we are God's most favored and even design after him (presumably God would have regenerating limbs), why not give it to us? Think of it, no more amputees ever.

Coffrey: This is just an abbreviated list. There are many more, but my point is made. Even one of these is enough to show that there either isn't a creator, that there was an incompetent creator, or evil creator. And all of these can be explained via evolution.

Your thoughts, theists?

Coffrey: Better yet, he designed us to be so dumb and stupid as to not see how perfect his design was!

Comrade_: How is having nipples dumb btw? I happen to like mine haahaha

Sorry but you should probably pull better examples none of these are strong, be honest man, is it really faulty to have one tube? Biologically I see it as working fine. Ah I can go on about the others but idk if it'd serve a purpose to go through your list, I think you had an agenda, one that I don't want to get involved with tbh.

Coffrey: Well, nipples on males serve zero purpose....... okay, maybe not zero, but if an intelligent creator created us, males wouldn't have nipples unless he was inept, stupid, or was fucking with us.

Of course you see one tube working fine, you've haven't choked to death yet dolphins and whales have blowholes, separate tubes for breathing and eating. So it can be done, so why didn't our intelligent creator give us every advantage?

Yeah, I'm an atheist, but the thing is, if there are two sides, it's not always the answer is in the middle. My overall point is that I hear Christians all the time talk about intelligent design, but only cases that suit them, not what I listed. If there was a PERFECT, intelligent creator, maybe you argue the blowholes or regenerating limbs, but not the other things. If there is a god, he's either like us in terms of fallibility and this is his best attempts or he's fucking with us, he's having a go at this whole creation thing for his own amusement. Either case, he certainly isn't what they claim of him

Zanjan: You'd not have to ask these questions if YOU were smart enough to create a living being.

This fact tells us the answers would be lost on you. Well, me too, for some of them.

Imagine trying to explain genetics to people who lived thousands of years ago.

Zanjan: Unintelligent design: the western model of democracy. Child safety lids. Nuclear power plants. Homes built over earthquake fault lines. Plastic clam shell packages. Venice. Norton software. Bruno Maltise 'Heaven's Hitman' Album cover. Kitchen carpet. The Studebaker .......you get the drift.

" he's having a go at this whole creation thing for his own amusement."

We agree! Wouldn't you if you were God?

Comrade_: Coffrey, I don't care if there is a creator or not, just that your points are a bit silly, there must be better things that you can pick at than those.

No, apparently I and along with other folks and animals who take time to eat haven't chock to death, go figure must be something eerie about that. I must take eating as a health hazard I guess. We are different from dolphins in structure, though having one tube we have the ability to breathe through both our nose and mouths, I'd like to imagine the amounts who die yearly if we had only one tube for breathing ie our nose, how much an emergency the common cold (with the clogging of the nose) will be.
Point: having 3 arms would probably serve as a better system but having 2 works and perhaps works more than 3. You get the point?

Nipples are there but males don't have full female breast (naturally), perhaps it comes from genetics, instead of seeing things as being set in place, why not see it as all being linked? We are genetically suited for everything nothing more, nothing less. A regenerated limb serves what purpose and how will that fit on our genetic make up, compared to a salamander? Our cells renew themselves, the skin you have now wasn't the same one you had as a kid, technically so are some other organs (cept the neurons, I think).

I know you're an atheist but it's a bit better to come up with something solid than just arguing for argument sakes, just looks more as if you have personal issues with a God than having a realistic view on life.


"Coffrey: Better yet, he designed us to be so dumb and stupid as to not see how perfect his design was!"

- But aren't we already discovering the many mysteries of not only the universe but our own environment? I'd not call that dumb/stupid...

Comrade_: btw some animals use their eyes in the dark to a certain point, some have larger pupils that allow light to come into their eyes. Bats for example use their weak eyes but it is not 'blind', it uses it.

Comrade_: I'm just saying, things are in motion when you look at it as a whole, example saying the earthquakes are an error as it causes a lot of deaths, but when you look at it as a whole you see that it is in motion in terms of plate tectonics, it's a minor problem that occurs from something that is greatly important and necessary.

Whether all these things are sign that there is an intelligent creator, I have my own personal view on it that I lean on, but it's up to the individual on how they perceive things.

Zanjan: Male nipples have been known to give milk. This has served primitive tribes when young babes lose their mothers.

Birds used to have teeth - they're dinosaurs and can be nasty raptors again if needed. Wales used to be amphibians.

Human ears are flat to help catch nuances of spoken language - not cracking twigs in the forest caused by non-existent predators. Also, we can easily wear hats and look kewl. I do wish I had an owl's neck rotation though.

The skin does a fair bit of breathing - if you covered yourself totally in house paint, yet left mouth and nostrils open, you'd die of suffocation.

orkanen: JackEthan: I suppose the point is that if we were created by an intelligent designer, it made us weak, prone to diseases it also created, and that it attacks at random, especially at those raised to believe that it has a plan, instead of them taking measures to care for themselves and preventing the disease in the first place.

Coffrey: @Jack, the point is there is at least one thing on this list that you disagree with, that can be an example of stupid design. Only one example is needed to prove an inept creator, whereas all of these can be easily explained by evolution. Forget the preferences, look at the first example, the giraffe, it's the best one. I don't see how all the all-powerful, infallible superbeing known as God would make the giraffe that way. Maybe this is a bit of an argument from ignorance, but if you can give me a benefit that has over just going straight across, you let me know. The longer it is, the more it's prone to some type of contusion or something happening to it at any of its lengthy points. It's kind of like if you order cable and the cable guy came over, looped the cable around your neighbor's house, up and over a tree, around a different neighbor's, then to your cable box. That would be pretty stupid to me

@Zanjan, if you accept a god who put evolution into place (and also that the world is older than 6,000 years old) then all of this can make sense, but that would mean god is hands-off. I'm only speaking to the ones that think everything that is here as it is now was created.

@orkanen, actually God enjoys when people die, so I don't think that is the best example. How he structured the world and the animals is more than just a bloodlust, it's downright piss-taking

Comrade_: Actually, no, nothing I agree with, because your points don't stand against the reality that everything works, esp. if you're putting these silly points against the wider backdrop. I'm not mentioning evolution, only your counter-arguments. Your points would not be 'unintelligent designs, it would then be 'improvement to intelligent designs', you understand what I mean?

@orkanen, some diseases are necessary in order to build our immune system, how would we be immune to diseases though, magic? Even if there was an intelligent creator I think he too will be bound to put a realistic system/method.

@Coffrey, you disbelieve in a God yet you address him as if he exist...beats me.

combat: No matter how much atheists argue that things point in the direction of a non-created universe, theists still insist on the existance of a creator (or alternatively several creators) by claiming that all things unfavourable to their view are just a divine test or parts of a greater plan that we are not supposed to know the details of, which sounds like a pretty fairytale-ish way to argue in my opinion, since one has no way of opposing such vague statements and they can get away with whatever view they want without anybody becoming any wiser.

Coffrey: @Jack, actually I have no earthly idea what you're talking about. Maybe I'm being a bit unclear, so I'll explain where I'm coming from. I've talked to various religious people, and the very first discussion goes like this "So why do you believe in a god(s)? What evidence do you have?" me, obviously. "Just look at the birds and trees and universe. You think it all happened by accident/came from nothing? An intelligent creator had to make all of this stuff" And that's where this list came in. It doesn't refute that a god exists, it doesn't assert or even demonstrate that a god doesn't exist, all this points to is that an idiot/cruel god exists, if any. But the finer point is that no god exists, since this can all be explained by evolution by natural selection.

As for referring to a god even if I don't believe, I can say all day with certitude "Your god doesn't exist" but it's boring and it doesn't challenge anyone's ideas or opinions. So take their original premise, a god exists, and then show that, at the very least, you got his character and competency all wrong

Comrade_: @Coffrey, I think I stated it very simple, your points on the list you've made don't match up as everything that is in current existence works, it is working. My nipples serve me no real purpose but neither does it cause me a discomfort or make my existence unworkable. 'Unintelligence" would mean the opposite.

I know on taking someone's position to argue a point that God exist, but you seem to go beyond that even when the statement of a God existing wasn't brought up. As if to you he exist...seems more anti-theist than atheist, just an observation.

Coffrey: Ohhh, I see what you're saying. Well yeah, they are all functional, evolution only dictates who can pass on their traits, usually only limited to positive traits or traits that aren't negative enough to hinder survival or reproduction. My point was, if there was an intelligent creator, there wouldn't be these problems because it's stupid design.

Atheism is simply no belief that a god exists, it's a poor discussion topic because we can't discuss what we don't believe. Just as if we discussed my non-stamp collecting hobby. This has always been about a god, the Abrahamic god because that is the god that is in our faces all the time.
By the way, I don't know if a god exists or not, one could. But I know the Abrahamic god doesn't exist, at least not with those traits ascribed to him by various texts

shreya372: And the great paradox is that poor Abraham, who wasn't even a monotheist, has been launched as some kind of "super-believer" in a deity that wasn't even created until much later.

Zanjan: "......(and also that the world is older than 6,000 years old...)" 6000 years refers to the *civilized* world, not the planet itself.

"that would mean god is hands-off."

Not exactly. I think it takes more than written language to prove one is civilized. Particularly, that man didn't stay stuck at that limitation should be an indication he was being guided forward, not knowing which way that was on his own.

Today, remnants of each of those previous *civilized* versions of man are still with us, either to remind of us our roots or, to gloat that, unlike them, we're not human polyps.

"just a divine test or parts of a greater plan that we are not supposed to know the details of"

Oh, but we DO know a bundle of details, even centuries ahead of time. It's atheists who don't know it because God's Voice, in their mind, doesn't exist, you see.

As for Stephen Hawking and his buddy scientists, they can only explain what material substances DO in the physical universe. We all know how a ball can bounce off a wall.

Coffrey: " But I know the Abrahamic god doesn't exist, at least not with those traits ascribed to him by various texts "

How odd that nobody has published a book about that - I mean, with different traits ascribed to the God of Abraham. Could this be one of your future ventures?

Shreya - this isn't about Abraham Lincoln.

vanguard: Abraham (the patriarch, not the president) believed in many gods from his native homeland Mesopotamia and his new resident region of Canaan, where he eventually adopted El as his main god. This concept split into El Sabbaoth, El Shaddai and El Elyon; and some of its elements found their way into the YHWH that Moses later composed as a Canaanite-Egyptian-Midianite-Hebrew hybrid. So if anybody should be credited with founding the later Israelite god, it must be Moses and not Abraham.

antonello: I have already posted on Abraham's faith here:

Topic: Religion

Zanjan: We can read for ourselves about Abraham in the Bible. However, none of us knew Him so none can assert they have knowledge of His faith other than what is written there.

Fleinsopp: Often, the Bible doesn't give us the whole truth. In the case of Abraham, we need to include elements from other sources about the culture background that he lived against and what he could have believed in or not. We have to remember that the Old Testament was written 1000-1500 years after he lived and that much of its content is coloured by the theological opinion of its authors/editors. They defined their god according to their own preferences and ideals that hardly corresponded with anything that existed during Abraham's time.